A boisterous campaign to name the Carson City Council chambers after the community’s recently retired city clerk was, for many residents, a flashpoint in the last election that ushered in a change in the council majority and returned voting power to Mayor Jim Dear.

This week, members of “Helen’s Dream Coalition” celebrated their victory with a unanimous council vote to name the second-floor room in City Hall for Helen Kawagoe, who served as city clerk for nearly four decades and retired last year after suffering a debilitating stroke.

A political campaign to name the council chambers after her emerged when council members split over the issue of whether city facilities should be named after living people. A city policy required that city streets and buildings only be named after those who are deceased – something that also prevented Dear from moving forward with a plan to have a street named for himself.

On Tuesday, the council will again debate changing the city’s policy to have city facilities, streets and parks named after living people.

The issue of naming city facilities was so divisive that it prompted former Councilwoman Julie Ruiz-Raber to change her allegiance from Dear and Councilman Elito Santarina to their political foes, council members Lula Davis-Holmes and Mike Gipson. That gave the trio majority voting power and, in 2011, they voted to name the chambers after Kawagoe after her death. Dear, Santarina and a consortium of residents called the then-council majority cruel for postponing the renaming until after Kawagoe’s death.

“I’ve talked to people, and no one has ever heard of such a thing that we’re going to name it after you, but we’re going to name it after you’re dead,” Dear said last summer. “Requiring her death to take place first – that’s unheard of. “

But Davis-Holmes, Gipson and Ruiz-Raber maintained they would not support a precedent of naming city facilities for living people because they feared Dear simply wanted to name things after himself. On Wednesday, a new City Council was sworn in and Dear made it his first order of business to approve the immediate name change. Dear now has a voting majority, along with Santarina and newly elected Councilman Albert Robles. The vote was unanimous, even though Davis-Holmes and Gipson maintain that they would rather wait until after her death so that other living Carson politicians won’t try to have things named for themselves.

Barbara Romano, a resident who attended Wednesday’s meeting with fellow members of Helen’s Dream Coalition, said she was thrilled that the chambers will be named for Kawagoe sooner rather than later.

“I think it was disgraceful that they wanted to wait until she died,” Romano said. “This was something she really wanted and, for them to be so cruel to her, I thought that was awful. So finally, on Wednesday night, when they voted for it, it was so exciting. “

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.